There are some moments that just stick in your head forever. Like during the cut scenes of The Last of Us: Left Behind, watching Ellie and Riley play together in the abandoned mall, hoping the whole fucking time that Naughty Dog would just take it one step further, let these two kids have some space, find each other, just a hint, just an inkling, just something to let us know that maybe in a parallel universe of our dreams that there'd be a video game about two teens dancing around the issue of maybe just maybe being for the first time in love. Brushing hands. Awkward eye contact. Say something. Just anything—
…and then they kiss.
It's short. Sweet. Unexpected. Awkward and abrupt. I'm sorry— Ellie gasps.
For what? Riley wonders.
For what indeed. I was twenty-seven stories above Manhatten, glancing out the windows into a glorious sunset, staining the city an autumn red and crisp gold, light scintillating off a thousand facets of skyscrapers directly into my soul. I teared up. Shielded my face. In the corner of my eye I could see Prerna naked, stark sunlight drenching her supple skin, and with every smooth movement, every effortless glide she turned a new shade of Sunkist copper.
I was Tilíon. She was Arien. The sight might blind me, sear my eyes, but I couldn't look away. And even if it might stain me forever it was worth it just to know I had burned with her, if only once, if only for this instant.
She was Finduilas, I was Túrin Turambar: the bloodstained, ill-fated. I built myself a bridge to Nargothrond, and all roads led to her.
